Rtings.com now 100% behind a paywall membership.

[SnoopZ]

Rtings used by many people for Television reviews along with many other products has just announced it is moving to a paywall model of $10 a month or $45 a year.

This is very unfortunate and I personally think the sites signed it's death warrant, I can't see them surviving.

https://www.rtings.com/company/revamping-our-membership-program

 

[hellowalkman Reporter]

Google is out here killing off helpful blogs like these. No wonder they had to do this:

"RTINGS.com has historically relied heavily on organic search traffic from Google and affiliate links. That model is becoming less reliable. Fewer people click through from Google organic results than they used to. At the same time, AI actively scrapes and reuses our test results, often without attribution and without the context needed to interpret them correctly.

Meanwhile, performing lab-based and in-depth testing is expensive. We buy every product ourselves, like normal consumers (no paid or sponsored reviews), test them using standardized, repeatable methods, and publish the full results transparently.

A membership-supported model reduces our dependence on Google, limits unrestricted AI scraping of our test results, and gives us incentives that are more sustainable and aligned with consumers."

[Steven P. Administrators]

On 03/03/2026 at 00:20, SnoopZ said:

Rtings used by many people for Television reviews along with many other products has just announced it is moving to a paywall model of $10 a month or $45 a year.

This is very unfortunate and I personally think the sites signed it's death warrant, I can't see them surviving.

https://www.rtings.com/company/revamping-our-membership-program

 

On 03/03/2026 at 14:56, hellowalkman said:

Google is out here killing off helpful blogs like these. No wonder they had to do this:

The struggle is real.

[Michael Scrip]

I don't have a problem paying for websites with a broad range of topics.  You know... general news and forums.  Sometimes you'll get perks like ad-free podcasts and whatnot.

But how often is a person buying a TV that they would benefit from a membership to a TV reviewing website?

🤔

[+Good Bot, Bad Bot Subscriber¹]

On 02/03/2026 at 18:20, SnoopZ said:

Rtings used by many people for Television reviews along with many other products has just announced it is moving to a paywall model of $10 a month or $45 a year.

This is very unfortunate and I personally think the sites signed it's death warrant, I can't see them surviving.

https://www.rtings.com/company/revamping-our-membership-program

 

Well they certainly won't survive doing hands-on testing of TVs they went and bought then providing the information for free with what a site like that gets from ad revenue these days. Worse as someone else already pointed out Google search and AI is ruining sites that are actually useful and even stealing their content.

 

 

On 03/03/2026 at 10:04, Michael Scrip said:

I don't have a problem paying for websites with a broad range of topics.  You know... general news and forums.  Sometimes you'll get perks like ad-free podcasts and whatnot.

But how often is a person buying a TV that they would benefit from a membership to a TV reviewing website?

🤔

Well one can pay for one month for $10 which I would do when next in the market for a TV as it's a great resource. You really think a site slapping up a forum to a site that literally is buying TVs to test and review them is similar?  The labor and costs are not comparable at all.

EDITED

[Michael Scrip]

On 03/03/2026 at 10:28, Good Bot, Bad Bot said:

Well one can pay for one month for $10 which I would do when next in the market for a TV as it's a great resource.

I am not sure how you can compare a site slapping up a forum to a site that literally is buying TVs to test and review them.  The labor and costs are not the same at all.

Good point!  Thank you.

[Steffan]

Hopefully this doesn't fully open the door for vendors to pay them to get a better review/recommendation.